For Patty Fallone, the fact that her husband Anthony’s fate is now written in ink brings her little comfort.

Clutching the piece of paper that arrived in the mail yesterday, she said: “The death certificate does not bring me closure.”

“I had that the moment the towers came down.”

Anthony, 39, was a bond broker working in the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald in the north tower when the terrorists struck the World Trade Center.

The simple detail on the first batch of 70 certificates issued this week hides the horror of what happened to him and thousands of others that day.

Each death is listed as “homicide,” the location of death is the World Trade Center, the date of death is Sept. 11, 2001. According to a box with an “X” in it, the death occurred while the victim was “at work.”

Patty Fallone, a mother of four who lives on Roosevelt Island, explained, “It’s surreal. It says on the certificate that Anthony’s death was a homicide and that his body is still lost.

“When I first saw it, I almost laughed – does this mean if his remains are found, I have to get a new one?”

“I had just been getting over the numbness this week when the certificates came out. Now I am on autopilot again to deal with the administrative tasks ahead.”

A clinical research manager, Fallone is mom to Katie, 11, Alexandra, 9, Anthony, 7, and Patrick, 4. When the mail came yesterday, she was thinking of her kids and their future.

“When the brown envelope came through this morning, at first I thought it was life-insurance papers my husband had intended to sort out before this happened.

“They sent me 10 copies of the certificate to help with all the banks and organizations I have to send one to. It normally costs $15 to get each copy, but I guess they feel this is no ordinary death.”

“I felt it had to be done and I wanted to get it over with. I saw no point in waiting. I feel I have been spared the trauma of having to identify his remains,” she said, sitting in her picture-filled apartment overlooking the East River.

“I have the comfort of believing he had passed out. I’m glad he didn’t have the time to make a call with his dying words to his wife with all the noise in the background.”

Officials say more than 1,000 families have now applied for death certificates, which are essential for life-insurance payouts and benefits.

Under normal circumstances, the complex process would take three years, but after the devastation of Sept. 11, city officials decided to issue the certificates in just a few days.

Even though Chandra Dataram received a death certificate for her 25-year-old daughter yesterday, she hasn’t give up hope that Annette is alive.

“I am still praying that she’ll walk in the door and say, ‘Mom, I’m home,'” said Dataram, 43.

Annette worked as an accountant at Windows on the World. Her family has not seen her since she left their South Ozone Park, Queens home at 6.30 a.m. Sept. 11.

For them, the death certificate is just a piece of administrative matter, a legal loophole. Only finding her daughter’s body will bring closure, Dataram said.

“When I opened the death certificate, my heart was so angry and so sad, ” she said.

“It’s really hard for us to think she’s gone and we don’t have a body and we didn’t get to say goodbye.”

Ira Blau, 49, knew in his heart he’d lost his wife, Rita, 52, the moment he saw the second plane hit the south tower on his TV. He applied for a death certificate at the first opportunity, on Sept. 26.

Rita, who worked as a switchboard operator for the Fiduciary Trust on the 90th floor, had called him moments before to say she was leaving the building.

“She said, ‘I have to go, I love you.’ Then I saw the plane hit, and I knew right away there was no hope for her survival,” said Blau, who lives in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn.

“When I saw the way the smoke and fire went up, I lost even hope of finding body parts for burial,” Blau said. “For me, getting the death certificate was just something I had to do.”